Find outis the everlasting flame that keeps me burning, ofwhich he’s well aware. The reason I search for the unexplained is so that I can then explain it, so that I can pin its wings in a shadow box and know what its name is.
My breathing flutters. Skips. “You’re trying to seduce me again.”
Morgan’s gaze is serious, and it levels me. “No, Zelda. Iunderstandyou. You understand me, too, which is why it won’t come as a surprise when I do this.”
He walks over the threshold and disappears.
Thirty-Three
Open wide the witch’s door
and burn with magic evermore.
But to gain, you must surrender
remembrance of the witch forever.
—Origin unknown
Local Legends and Superstitions,
Tempest Family Grimoire
I fall through thefloor after him, ending up not in a pit but back outside again. “The house…ejected us?” I sputter, revolving in a circle. The door we entered is different now: theNothing to See Herehas changed toLeaving So Soon?and the carved owl has altered, too, its wings lifted in flight. Morgan is staring straight ahead.
I follow his gaze.
The ground is scarcely visible under a thick layer of brilliant autumn leaves, and the still, golden air around us tastes of smoke and cider, mist twisting between the dark forks of red maples in full plumage. Across a dirt road is a sprinkling of very old buildings, medieval but perfectly preserved, as if we’ve just stepped back in time.
“Was all of this invisible to us before?” I say.
Morgan shakes his head slowly, indicating he has no idea, no room in his head to process what it is that we’re seeing. Surely, this is the same forest we’ve been walking through all day. But just as surely, it is not. The shape of the trees, and the colors, are not the same. It is enhanced, like the art in a children’s storybook; scarlet trees climb the sky like burning towers, their leaves reflecting a bright sunlight that can’t be detected elsewhere. You’d think by looking at them that the sun must be high in the sky, but the coloring is more like evening. Soft and rosy.
He hitches Forte’s sling higher on his shoulder. “What do we do?”
“We’re explorers, aren’t we? We explore.”
We have found ourselves in a small village, and in the hub of this village there is a fountain with troughs for horses and linen-scrubbing, as well as a cluster of trade stalls. There are no people, but the stalls bear a great deal of fresh food: smoked meat, snow-white apples, figs, sweet potatoes, stews that are still steaming. A rich bounty of berries. Colorful vegetables.
I lean in to catch the aroma of blackberry pie, hot from the oven. “Who cooked all this? Seems like a bunch of people ought to be here, but there’s nobody.”
“Maybe the people are invisible,” Morgan suggests.
Wooden arrows point down various trails called Elderberry Flood, Widow’s Walk, and Bear’s Bellow. Along this road are houses, a hat shop, a tavern half-timbered and studded with river stones. Hanging from the tavern’s eaves is a signshaped like an open book, with a curled-up purple dragon painted on. Beneath that, in tinfoil-silver lettering:The Drowsing Dragon. Its windows are ablaze with lamps.
As soon as Morgan pushes the door open, a crackling fire spurs to life in the hearth, flinging its comforting warmth across the room to greet us like a friend. There is so much toseethat I’m overwhelmed and stand frozen for a few moments. Morgan, of course, starts springing about, touching everything he possibly can.
Herbs and dried flowers string the rafters like holiday garland, hanging squarely over a wooden table so rough-hewn that it’s still got a couple tree branches sticking out. A mortar and pestle lie atop, as well as a carpetbag. The carpetbag’s design is that of a mountainous forest sprinkled beneath a castle, yellow moon embroidered behind its tallest turret.
There’s a spinning wheel along one wall, next to a woodbox heaped with rotten, fungus-covered logs. Bits of straw are scattered on the floor. I crane my neck to see up a staircase but don’t dare climb it, because what if the stairs are magicked just like the spooky cabin was, and they lead me to a different place or time?
The Drowsing Dragon doesn’t smell musty or neglected, but cheery and alive, lived-in, as if its occupants have stepped outside for a minute and plan to be right back.
“Stunning, spectacular, sensational,” Morgan is raving, rooting through feathers, candlesticks, lumps of quartz, pouches containing items that whine or sob, a kettle that’s heating itself up on the stove right this second without being asked. “Zelda, why aren’t you moving? Hurry up and be nosy!”
“My brain is moving,” I reply. “I’m giving it a head start before my legs join.”
He laughs to himself, grinning wide. “It all looks so old! But new! Wherearewe?” He moves to examine the fireplace, which is perhaps the most extraordinary feature in the tavern. The hearth has been blasted a deep glittering purple from what I can only imagine must be years of exploding enchantments. Moss clings to the fireplace’s stonework. A braid of vines as thick as my neck roots down the chimney and across the walls to bloom moonflowers like living art.
